Category: Travel

Exit towards Sir Syed Gate, University of Kashmir University of Kashmir, Sir Syed Gate ‘What brings you to the valley?’, she asks as I stand looking at a board which lists M.Phil scholars, their supervisors and their thesis titles in the English Department. I am intrigued by T N Dhar and M L Pandit’s name [...]

Towns and villages along Indian highways that connect major cities are being transformed in ways that will have significant bearing on the growth trajectory of this country. It is in these locations that India is changing perhaps more rapidly. One tends to imagine the metropolis as a site of reading transformation in a society, which [...]

What disturbs me about this place seems an obvious answer on the face of it. A million human lives were destroyed here in a time which I can only read about and imagine. I live in its continuity. But I haven’t had the misfortune of being in the time when it happened, to have witnessed [...]

The specifics of travel in these times are standard. We know our way through the border controls, airports, transfers and how to arrive at hotels in new cities. In most parts of the world this is straightforward. The discomfort about the unknown begins beyond this point when the guidebook is not taken, travel forums are [...]

9/7/2018 Kampala Arrived in Kampala after a twelve-hour bus ride from Kigali. Through the bus window, one gets a slow and close introduction to the landscapes, life and people outside of the capital cities. Kampala’s playlist goes on until early hours, uninterrupted and loud. Sleep if one must, enveloped by sound. Travelers join in, linger, [...]

Kigali smiles generously. There is intrigue, amusement or a smile on most faces that a visitor crosses on the streets here. and kind to each other in numerous small ways. Elsewhere, we spent time discussing conflict, peace and post-conflict societies. This elsewhere was a classroom several years back, in Bangalore. We were high on ideas [...]

The city is cold. This is not a statement on weather here. Even on weather’s count, cold season of cities in lower latitudes is Oslo’s summer. It manages to keep an attractive and highly refined façade of affluence and lifestyle that unfurls into layers of nuances only on repeat visits. Parts of the city that [...]